MANTAS INC ANNOUNCES FUNDING, AND MANAGEMENT TEAM

Mantas Inc, a knowledge discovery company providing business intelligence solutions for exchanges and the financial services industry, announced its first round of funding and the formation of its management team.

Mantas is the first spin-off company from SRA Ventures, LLC, a joint venture company formed by SRA International Inc, an information technology consulting and systems integration firm, and Safeguard Scientifics Inc, a leader in developing and operating emerging infrastructure technology companies.

The name Mantas was adopted by SRA to describe and promote a data mining and pattern recognition technology developed at SRA over the past 10 years. Mantas benefits from SRA assistance in developing the Advanced Detection System (ADS) for NASD Regulation. ADS surveys the Nasdaq and other over-the-counter markets regarding brokerage firms' trading activities as they relate to the overall market. SRA and Merrill Lynch partnered to develop one of the first applications of Mantas. The application, Merrill Lynch's BEAMS (Best Execution Analysis and Monitoring System), helps Merrill Lynch provide best execution to its clients for trading in equities. The Mantas technology is also applied to create anti-money laundering solutions for banks and brokerages.

"Mantas is positioned to make a significant difference in the way banks and securities firms mine their data," said Richard Spires, Mantas president and COO. "Our primary advantage is the combination of our experience in the financial services industry and our technology credentials in data mining and knowledge discovery techniques. This leadership helps account for our highly referenceable client base and proven technology platform," he added.

The Mantas leadership team includes subject matter experts in areas including best execution, anti-money laundering, fraud detection, SEC Rule 11 compliance, order flow management and relationship management. The company's financial services industry focus, coupled with its knowledge-discovery-based technology, provides clients with the necessary expertise to mitigate risk, understand customer behavior, and identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities specific to the banking and brokerage industries.

"SRA Ventures recognized that the knowledge discovery platform created by SRA's Mantas team provided more than a business unit opportunity for SRA International," said Barry S. Landew, president of the SRA business unit that will oversee activities in support of SRA Ventures. "It was a company unto itself with the potential to transform the banking, exchange and brokerage industries."

"We are pleased to welcome Mantas, as well as SRA, to the Safeguard network of companies," said Chris Davis, a Safeguard vice president and Chairman of The Board for Mantas. "Mantas's extensive domain expertise, proven technology platform and outstanding client base convinced Safeguard that this was an exciting investment opportunity and an ideal addition to Safeguard's extended network of more than 250 technology-focused companies."

In addition to an enterprise solution, Mantas plans to offer an application service provider (ASP) delivery model, which will provide a cost-effective solution to small and medium-sized financial services companies.

The Mantas Team

• Richard Spires, president and COO - Mr. Spires spent more than 16 years with SRA International before joining Mantas. At SRA, he helped develop the commercial consulting and systems integration business from less than $5 million in revenues in 1995 to more than $35 million in 2000. This business focused on promoting knowledge discovery, enterprise systems management and document workflow solutions to the financial services and legal markets. His key managerial roles in supporting the development of this business culminated in his leadership of SRA's commercial business in 1999 and 2000.
• Jim Hayden, Product Management Leader - As a former manager and founder of the Knowledge Discovery Solutions Practice at SRA International, Mr. Hayden has worked for more than 15 years on designing, developing and implementing very large database related solutions for Fortune 100 companies. He is currently responsible for defining and delivering knowledge-discovery-based solutions to the brokerage and banking industries. These solutions are focused on applying advanced pattern discovery and pattern matching techniques to large databases to deter fraud and risk and to enable clients to better understand their business and their customers.
• Jeff Jones, Business Development Leader - Mr. Jones joins Mantas after starting aligne's Business Acceleration group, a consulting practice providing the experience and process necessary to help early stage companies succeed. From business idea development through business foundation, planning and execution, aligne provided services to numerous new and existing Safeguard Scientifics companies, including Mantas. Prior to aligne, Mr. Jones was president of Reuters' Web Development and Operations Group Inc, a subsidiary of Reuters America Inc, where he managed the development and operations of more than 40 brokerage Web sites and Reuters Investor, a Reuters service that provides market data to more than 200 bank and brokerage Web sites.
• John Young, Product Development Leader - Mr. Young is a software and systems engineer with experience in technical leadership, solution architecture and innovation, requirements research and analysis, systems and software design and implementation of communications protocols. His primary responsibility is to ensure the quality of Mantas's securities and banking solutions.
• Steve Donoho, Research Leader - As Head Data Miner within SRA's Knowledge Discovery Solutions Practice, Dr. Donoho's work has involved research, design, and development of solutions for detecting interesting patterns in large quantities of data. In his 15 years of software experience, Dr. Donoho has gained experience in areas including capital markets surveillance, mortgage fraud detection, auto insurance fraud detection, and anti-money laundering.
• Nancy Kline, Broker/Dealer Compliance Expert - Ms. Kline has spent more than 14 years in the securities industry, primarily in regulatory and full-service broker-dealer environments. Prior to joining Mantas, Ms. Kline served as vice president of compliance for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey and Co Inc, responsible for ensuring firm and employee compliance with regulations stemming from a variety of agencies including the SEC, NASD and MSRB. From 1986 to 1997, she held positions in market regulation, member regulation and internal review at the NASD.
• Don Temple, Money Laundering and Bank Secrecy Act Subject Matter Expert -- A nationally recognized expert in the area of currency reporting, money laundering, the detection of suspicious transactions, and fraud investigations, Mr. Temple joined Mantas after 26 years with the Internal Revenue Service in the Delaware/Maryland District where he served as a Special Agent. While at the IRS, he became the Title 31 Coordinator and developed the Maryland Financial Investigative Task Force -- a multi agency task force that included the FBI, U.S. Customs Service, U. S. Postal Service, U. S. Secret Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration -- that was used as a model for subsequent task forces formed in the U.S. At Mantas, he works with clients on their business requirements and provides assessment services in the areas of compliance planning, programs, and training.

About Mantas

Mantas is a leader in providing business intelligence solutions for the global financial services industry, backed by the unique combination of knowledge discovery technology, banking and brokerage expertise, and high client satisfaction. The Mantas knowledge discovery platform offers an extensible foundation that allows businesses to optimize the value of their data across business areas. Mantas provides comprehensive monitoring and analysis of every transaction to detect and discover behaviors of interest. Financial services institutions such as exchanges, security firms and banks can apply this technology to assist in: trading and market-making analysis, order flow management, trading compliance, fraud detection, anti-money laundering and relationship management. Mantas is a Safeguard Scientifics partner company and is backed by SRA International Inc.

About Safeguard

Safeguard, www.safeguard.com, is a leader in identifying, developing and operating emerging technology companies. Safeguard currently focuses primarily on the infrastructure technology industry, including communications, software and e-Services. Safeguard provides management support and operations services to its partner companies and leverages its vast network of resources to their benefit as strategic partners, customers, test beds and sales channels. The Safeguard network consists of more than 40 direct holdings and an extended network of more than 250 technology-centric partner companies.

About SRA

SRA, www.sra.com, is an information technology firm that provides services and solutions to business and government. The Company specializes in Internet systems development, systems and software engineering, network integration and management, information security, enterprise systems management, data and text mining, and e-mail management systems. SRA serves clients in national defense, civil government, health care, and financial services. SRA was chosen for the second consecutive year by both Fortune, as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For in America," and Business Week, as one of the leading private information technology companies. The Company's 1,800 employees serve clients from its headquarters in Fairfax, VA, and offices across the country.

Contact Zer0 to 5ive, Erin Starzynski, 412-973-3418.